AWADmail Issue 731

A Weekly Compendium of Feedback on the Words in A.Word.A.Day
and Other Tidbits about Words and Language

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The berry-shaped organic product kermes was used as a dye by medieval
vintners to make red wine redder. As I wrote in Harvard Magazine, “Some
Harvardians may want to raise a toast when they learn that the word is
the source of our word ‘crimson’. A possible caveat: kermes consisted of
the swollen abdomens of female insects that infested the scarlet oaks of
southern Europe. Another round, anyone?”

“Teal Blue” was the official color of my organization in the Army, the
old Army Security Agency, which went out of existence in 1976. There were
more arguments among members over which shade of blue was teal blue than
any argument over the work we did (which was highly classified). Maybe it
was because color was something we could talk about in the open, while
we couldn’t talk about our work.

Dave Hatfield, Severn, Maryland

From: William Stanley (valcouns earthlink.net)
Subject: Teal

My new car company called it teal, but the DMV didn’t have that in their
computer, so my car was blue. I didn’t care.

I can never think of teal -- the ducks -- without recalling the
collective noun for a group of teal. It is “spring” and it suggests
both the sound and the action of several teal taking flight --
a spring of teal! More such collective nouns can be found here.

Ponceau brought me back to my childhood: I used to do model kits and tried
to paint figures of Napoleon army soldiers. The uniforms have vivid colors
and I remember a dragoon having a jacket with ponceau flaps. It was difficult
to reach the exact color until I found an obscure (and now deceased) small
paint company offering such color. I had to pester my parents so they could
send a check and I could receive the “right” color. I still have the small
Ponceau bottle with the dried remains somewhere in my attic... Thanks for
the memories.

Serge Astieres, Annecy, France

From: David Calder (dvdcalder gmail.com)
Subject: ponceau

It is interesting to note that coquelicot,
the more common word for the poppy, Papaver rhoeas, also means a bright red.
Famously painted by Monet in Les Coquelicots, it is also called the Flanders
poppy, the first living plant to flower after a Great War battle left behind
a devastated area. As such, it became a symbol of life defeating death. It
became the Anzac poppy, worn on April 25th every year at commemorations in
Australia and New Zealand.

For what it’s worth, the Prompter (a tenor role) in Richard Strauss’s
marvelous opera Capriccio,
is identified as Monsieur Taupe, and at least in the DVD version that I own,
is portrayed by a small man who spends much of his time blinking -- like a
mole, of course.

Ah yes, the cuttlefish. “A ten-armed marine mollusk differing from a
squid in that it has an internal calcified shell.” Fifty years ago in
high school Latin we had to memorize that definition. We were reading
some of Pliny’s letters and the teacher went to the topic of the ink the
Romans used when writing on papyrus. Whenever I read the word cuttlefish,
this definition immediately and automatically comes to mind. And, yes,
it did show up on a quiz.

Dennis Lynch, Queens Village, New York

From: Bob Wilson (wilson math.wisc.edu)
Subject: Meanings of sepia

Sepia in connection with photography has additional meaning beyond just
being a color. In traditional monochrome photography the “print” image
consists of metallic silver (where there is a dark region, finely divided
silver appears black) suspended in a coating on paper.

But, although silver is much more stable than the dyes making up a
color image, it can fade as it is affected by chemicals in the air, on
fingerprints, etc., such as sulfur compounds.

Sepia is used not as a dye but as a chemical that converts part or all of
the silver chemically to silver sulfide, which has the color we associate
with sepia toned prints. That is even longer lasting than plain silver,
so many of the very old photographs we still can enjoy are ones that were
sepia toned.

Bob Wilson, Oregon, Wisconsin

From: M Henri Day (mhenriday gmail.com)
Subject: Re : vermeil

“Natural is good. Usually. Arsenic can be natural too.” Indeed, and
everything we do, including that which is most “artificial”, is done
according to natural laws -- there are no others. We cannot allow ourselves
to be deceived by the curious notion that all that is “natural” is good
for us; rather we have to examine the matter in detail.

You might have emissions nocturnal
While dreaming of girls with hair vermeil,
But if there’s no stopping
The man with that topping,
We’re in for damnation eternal.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

The color vermeil is bright red.
It is made of vermiculus dead.
In your saute or stew
There’s no red number two
But ground insects that go in its stead.
-Gigi Pagani, San Rafael, California (gigi4cats gmail.com)

“I really don’t look good in teal,”
In the mirror said Ally McBeal.
“If I sleep with the judge,
His decision might budge,
But in this I could lose my appeal.”
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

The soirée held boundless appeal,
Dom Perignon flowed through the meal.
It was all glam and glitzy,
The guests were quite ritzy,
While the hostess looked fetching in teal.
-Judith Marks-White, Westport, Connecticut (joodth snet.net)

She wore a cute cape of ponceau.
and carried a chic portmanteau
filled with cookies and cakes
that for granny she’d baked.
The rest of this story you know.
-Anne Thomas, Sedona, Arizona (antom earthlink.net)

She wore a brief dress of ponceau
with a neckline that plunged very low.
She’d heard what they said
‘bout the lady in red
and thought,”that’s how to find me a beau.”
-Zelda Dvoretzky, Haifa, Israel (zeldahaifa gmail.com)

There once was an antelope,
Who couldn’t cope, and he’d mope,
Wished his coat was teal,
Or a bright vermeil,
Instead of a boring taupe.
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

In the old days a Borgia was Pope
Who did not like the cardinals in taupe.
Soon there came a decree
Saying “Red is for me,
And will cheer up Lucrezia, I hope.”
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

Said the movie fan, thrilled to the core,
to the film reel found under the floor;
“Though you’re tattered and sepia,
Of course I will keep ya.
They don’t make ‘em like you any more.”
-Zelda Dvoretzky, Haifa, Israel (zeldahaifa gmail.com)

The actress from Ethiopia
Had curls in shades of sepia.
Wherever she went
She dazzled each gent
Who, in her, found his utopia.
-Judith Marks-White, Westport, Connecticut (joodth snet.net)